Reimagining Englishness: ‘Race’, Class, Progressive English Identities and Disrupted English Communities

Abstract

This article explores suggestions made by the contemporary mainstream left in England that reinvigorated English national identities could be an important resource for constructing a progressive sense of social solidarity and community in England. Analysis of semi-structured qualitative interviews undertaken in a South London area finds that English identifiers do associate Englishness with a sense of social cooperation and community. However, for most participants, the expectations they have of Englishness are experienced as disrupted. Focusing on white participants' accounts, the article demonstrates how such disruptions are crucially related to the discourses of 'race' and class that seem to underpin English identities and thus severely if not fatally undermine the progressive potential of English nationalism.

Loud and proud: Passion and politics in the English Defence League

“…Moreover, the residential areas with the greatest growth of ethnic minority groups are those areas -like the one Tina refers towhere they were fewest in 2001 (Jivraj, 2012). A similar aggressive racialisation of 'others', who are seen as responsible for disrupting the 'English community', is identified by Leddy-Owen (2014: 1128 in his study of English identities in an ethnically diverse area of South London.…”

Nairn's England and the progressive dilemma: reappraising Tom Nairn on English nationalism

“…And in research conducted prior to the referendum, comparing nationalism in England, Scotland and Wales, sociologists Robin Mann and Steve Fenton concluded that ‘England provides the best case for a nationalism driven by resentment’ (Mann and Fenton : 208). Charles Leddy‐Owen meanwhile argued that ‘any advocacy of a re‐imagined Englishness should be treated with a strong degree of caution and scepticism, if not outright opposition, by anyone of a progressive political persuasion’ (Leddy‐Owen : 14).…”

Established and outsider nationals: Immigrant–native relations and the everyday politics of national belonging

“…However, migration scholars who have focused their research on the processes that pertain to the settlement of immigrants have paid less attention to the hegemonic role of ideologies of national belonging in shaping processes of inclusion/exclusion. Despite the recent academic attention on European states' increasing demands upon immigrants to prove their belonging and loyalty (Kofman, 2005;Van Houdt et al, 2011;Yuval-Davis, 2011) -as expressed in residence permit and citizenship acquisition requirements -and the rapidly growing literature on the (re-)production of ideologies of national belonging in everyday life (Brubaker et al, 2006;Edensor, 2002;Leddy-Owen, 2014;Skey, 2011;Vassenden, 2010), limited research has been done by migration scholars on how those ideologies are experienced, negotiated and contested by immigrants and natives in their day-to-day interactions and, most importantly, on how they influence the figuration in which their mutual relationship is cast. This paper argues that Elias and Scotson's (1994) established-outsiders model provides an appropriate analytical framework to address this dynamic.…”